Sam Miller has been appointed President of Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC). A devoted advocate for the arts, Miller brings a nationally recognized profile to the organization having spent five years as President of Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC), the ten-year national initiative with the mission to improve the conditions for artists working in all disciplines.

Sam Miller brings years of artistic leadership to LMCC. Recently, during his term as President of Leveraging Investments in Creativity, Miller developed efforts centered on increasing direct support for artists, enhancing artist/public interaction and improving the policy environment for creative work. He will continue to serve as President of the Board of LINC. Prior to his work at LINC, Miller was Executive Director of the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) for ten years where he spearheaded important new projects and pioneered a number of nationally significant programs, including the National Dance Project, the Creative Economy Initiative, and the Favorite Poem Project (with Robert Pinsky).

Prior to NEFA, Miller was at the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival where he served as Managing Director (working in partnership with Liz Thompson, formerly Executive Director of LMCC) and subsequently as Executive Director and President. During his tenure, he oversaw the significant expansion of the Pillow, transforming it from a summer dance festival and school to a year-round dance center serving dance artists from around the world. Miller also designed and directed a number of major projects including the Cambodian Artists Project, the Triangle Artists Project (in partnership with the Asian Cultural Council), and played a catalytic role in the development of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MassMoCA).

In 2009, Sam Miller founded OAM Company, an arts consulting and producing organization. As President of OAM, Miller worked with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation on dance and theater program strategies. He currently is developing a new graduate program, the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance (ICPP), in partnership with Wesleyan University and is producing a retrospective of the work of Eiko and Koma, who were previously artists in LMCC’s highly competitive Workspace Program. He sits on the Advisory Board of ODC/San Francisco, one of the most active centers for dance on the West Coast, and on the Board of Amrita Performing Arts in Phnom Penh, an international performing arts production company.

Miller, who will join LMCC in early July, said, “I look forward to working with the staff and board of LMCC on advancing the essential work they have been doing for almost four decades in Lower Manhattan. Throughout my career I have been a firm believer in the power of artists to transform and inspire changing communities. The work of LMCC is emblematic of that power.”

For 37 years, LMCC has been the leading voice for arts and culture in downtown New York City, producing cultural events and promoting the arts through grants, services, advocacy, and cultural development programs. LMCC offers a range of funding opportunities and support services for artists working in all artistic disciplines across Manhattan, and a broad range of free programs in the visual, performing and media arts that help cultivate new arts audiences and improve the quality of urban life. LMCC is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization supported by a range of foundations, corporations, individuals and government entities.